AFTER THE DELUGE

A prominent wage scandal saw celebrity chef George Calombaris publicly cancelled and his restaurant empire crumble. Stepping cautiously towards a comeback, the chef sits down with MICHAEL HARDEN to talk debts paid, lessons learnt and the faint glow of redemption.

On the surface, it seems like business as usual with George Calombaris. The chef’s trademark Tigger-like enthusiasm is on full display as he gives me the

tour of his latest venture, The Hellenic House Project, a former chicken shop turned dual-level diner in sleepy, suburban Highett, in Melbourne’s south-east. His speech is liberally seasoned with the awesome, amazing, and wonderful familiar to anyone who watched his decade on hit TV series MasterChef Australia.

The Hellenic House Project feels familiar too, and not only because of the name. Downstairs is The Kitchen, a modern take on a trad souvlaki shop that nods to his former business Jimmy Grants. Upstairs, a leafy terrace leads to a relaxed and breezy restaurant called The Good Room. Here the excellent Greek-accented menu displays creativity and playfulness (a delicious take on sushi with raw kingfish draped over dolmades and served with ginger-flavoured yoghurt for instance). And it’s as recognisable to those who’d dined at The Press Club and Hellenic Republic as Flower Drum’s duck or the steak frites at France-Soir.

But there’s clearly more at play here than a celebrity chef opening a new business. The Hellenic House Project is Calombaris’ first forward-facing venture since his spectacularly public fall from grace, the one that ended with his restaurant group Made Establishment going into administration in early 2020 and hundreds of workers losing their jobs.